


Shades of Shadows

by Toastie_Pan



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, I lost my soul in Pitioss and all I got was this hat, Metanoia Moira Zine (discontinued)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29521656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toastie_Pan/pseuds/Toastie_Pan
Summary: Ardyn,PitiossCome together more easier than you might think.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 12





	Shades of Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> My piece for the sadly now discontinued zine Metanoia Moira - An Ardyn Zine. 
> 
> It was a shame to see this zine not come to fruition but i wish the mods, the artists, the writers, cosplayers, merch creators all the best. This was a tough year and some of the worse circumstances. 
> 
> All the best and all the love.
> 
> Here's Ardyn messing about in Pitioss

The sigil burned white-hot beneath his palm as the grinding echo of sliding stone rumbled beneath his feet. The platform shifted, sliding down smoothly as stale air drifted upwards, whipping and catching the edges of his coat.  


Stepping forwards once it stopped, he easily avoided the searing hot spokes that moved up and down, ready to impale any fool useless enough to not take their danger seriously and stepped into the first chamber with a grin.  


‘So you remember me my dear, after all these long years. Truly, I am flattered by such quiet adulation.’  


Pulling off his hat with a flourish he bowed to the darkened room, the rumblings of deep machinery rising from the underground. Standing, he moved forward, sinking into his phantasmal abilities to leap to the higher platform rather than bother with the three room wrap-around he’d have to do otherwise-  


_‘Oh…’_   


A rush of air, a crushing pressure and with an echoed pounding of a drum Ardyn found himself stood once more at the entrance of the chamber.  


‘A surprise? For me? Oh. You are too kind.’ He muttered darkly, pulling off his hat and allowing it to drop on the floor, before pulling off his coat with a thud. He sighed. It really was rather pleasant to not have that weight on his shoulders. Undoing the scarf and letting it fall, Ardyn grinned. No tricks, no powers, no warps, no phantasmal leaps.  


‘Oh Pitioss you saucy minx.’ Ardyn smiled, rolling up his sleeves, ‘Very well, challenge accepted.’  


He wasn’t sure what led him back to the old training grounds of Solheim. A strange curiosity that tickled his fancy and led him past the deep roaring of Ravatogh to the camouflaged building sat in quiet menace on the hill.  


Whatever the reason, Arydn thought as he stood at the top of the slope about to slide down to hit the sigil that would open the main chamber to him, now he was here, there was no way he was going to lose.  


The rock wall blocking the chamber smashed open, the marble ball tearing it apart. Ardyn sauntered through it, eyes watching the large golden sphere turning in the low lighting with a smirk.  


‘How are getting over there?’  


‘We’ll find a way.’  


The voices of children? Ardyn glanced around the ledges above him, the shadows to the side. _How odd…_  


‘Hmm…what secrets are you whispering to me, ancient walls of splendour?’  


They didn’t answer.  


He didn’t expect them to.  


‘Right, old bones. Let’s see what you can do.’  


Jumping across the columns and climbing the grand sphere was harder work than he expected, but the leap of faith past the spikes was exact. A simple move but as he leapt to the next chamber he couldn’t help but feel just a little bit smug.  


‘Ahh, little beauties did you care for my success?’  


The phosphoric glow of Pitioss’ dragonflies swept past him as they danced, curious to the new body suddenly invading their dark home.  


‘Suppose not, darlings. But you have not seen anything yet.’  


He leapt to the next ledge only to feel his ankle give beneath him.  


‘Fuc-‘  


A curse, a crush and hammer of drums and Ardyn found himself staring at the same columns, the dragonflies flitting just as calmly as before, undisturbed.  


The four chambers that unlocked the next were not difficult to navigate, Ardyn refusing to suffer the indignity of the last slip-up. The beauties were watching, he would be loath to not present a less-than-perfect performance.  


He tried not to allow the roll of sweat running across his head to distract him as he jumped across the swinging door, landing at the edge of the next chamber, the giant skull pressing softly at his chest before retreating across the vast room, spikes screeching across the walls as it did.  


‘Ah, old friend, to see you in such auspicious circumstances, what a day!’ he bowed.  


_Ah! It’s scary! Please I can’t do this._   


_We came this far. Come. Have courage. It’s not as scary as Nannie._   


The skull pressed against his chest once more. A greeting and a memory. Ardyn shook his head. Those children, whoever they are seemed to be following like those dragonflies.  


Well, nevermind. Ardyn thought, leaping down to the small ledge, hopping to the even smaller safe zone before jumping across the wall, allowing the structure to screech and rumble above his head before jumping into the structure itself. Pitioss’ memory is long, she has much she wishes to tell.  


Sliding into the other chamber washed him with a strange nostalgia. The room of many perspectives. Ardyn didn’t need to worry however, he knew the gravity moved like a magnet here. Up was still up, down was still down.  


It wasn’t long until he was landing in front of a moving wheel and this seemed a good time to take a break.  


Sitting down he watched that wheel turn before him, its cyclic grinding somehow soothing. As he dozed, the children wandered towards him once more, their voices quiet, trembling in the darkness. Their spectres resting beside him.  


_‘I don’t know, what if we made a mistake? What if we never make it out of here?’_   


_‘We will. We have each other, there’s nothing we can’t defeat.’_   


_‘Except Nannie?’_   


A quiet laugh before he heard the one lean to the other, a grin in his voice.  


_‘Even Nannie.’_   


Ardyn chuckled coming out of his doze. Whoever these children were; he liked them.  


‘Well, back to it.’  


Passing through the labyrinth of hidden ledges and shadowed drops, Ardyn found himself staring at a single path with an unfamiliar shiver shaking under his skin. He walked forward carefully, the shadows holding a menace they had never before. When he reached the end, jumping onto the stone platform he realised the reason for his fear.  


‘Good evening, my goddess of death and time.’ He whispered, just as those children’s voices had before. ‘How very long it has been since I looked upon your face.’  


She stood chained within the shadows, her visage defiant to her captivity. He felt something slither across his mind as he stood watching her in the darkness.  


_‘Who is she? Do you know?’_   


Ardyn’s eyes remained fixed on the statue before him, but like a wind he felt the two by his side. The smaller having been hurled across the gap by the larger before the larger leapt to the edge, quickly pulled up by the smaller; the two taking a moment to rest in awe of the Goddess before them.  


_’I don’t know. Did you bring anything with you?_ ’  


_‘Why?’_   


_‘Tributes are meant to be given to Goddess’…right?’_   


_‘She’s a Goddess?’_   


‘She’d got to be…’ Ardyn answered, the ghosts of children past vanishing at his words. He grimaced, shaking his head as if to dispel whatever shades had entered his mind. Thoughts clear, he continued; he moved the way he knew he had to in order to send the room spinning, allowing him to move to the Lady herself but as he leapt onto her, sending her tipping into the void he found himself frowning, his waistcoat digging into his stomach, shirt clinging to his skin. How did he know how these conversations went? What was Pitioss telling him?  


Scratching at his skull, he made his way up and up and up, back into the room he had been in before; more sigils to activate, more spikes to avoid and a lot more jumps to make when he already felt all those years left chained like the Goddess below in a bricked up cell with only the ghosts of his failures to haunt hi-  


_‘Shit!’_   


The drums echoed in his head as he landed back before the descending stairs.  


_‘I’m alive…how…’_   


_‘We’re both alive! I guess this place won’t let us die, we have a second chance, let us use it!’_   


_‘I’m scared, I don’t want to fall.’_   


_‘I won’t let you.’_   


Ardyn grunted, gripping at his head as he dictated those words out to the darkness.  


‘So that is your play. Oh, Pitioss. Darling, you wound me.’  


Once again, the walls stayed silent, the spectres hidden.  


‘To the end then, let us see what you would think I need to know.’  


Dizzying heights and pinpoint jumps had Ardyn gritting his teeth, his body aching as he questioned again and again why he had decided to do this foolish thing and when he turned the corner to a corridor he watched with widened eyes as the spectres that had been following him took form. Two young boys in tunics of blue and white ran between two fields of hissing spikes, quick to go around the corner.  


He knew those two. He knew those two so very well.  


He growled as his anger roared into his chest as he stalked his way through that field, the heat burning his skin as he passed them but he didn’t feel them as he turned the corner.  


‘We’re nearly there, Brother! I see the Dawn!’  


‘We did it!’  


‘Yes. We did.’  


Ardyn looked up the last path, the open door showing the sickly sky that the parasite of the Scourge had created, looking upon the two boys stood at the ledge, hands clasped together staring down at where Ardyn stood; sweating and dishevelled, heart that had beaten for far too long twisting in long-buried emotions as he looked between the bright innocent eyes of two brothers who had no idea of the fate that would be thrust upon them.  


‘Oh what victory we clasped that day, my Brother.’ Ardyn whispered darkly, making his way up the slope. ‘The first to find and defeat the training grounds of ancient Solheim. If only you had stayed by my side, what victories could we have wrestled even from the Gods themselves?’  


The spectres of the two brothers didn’t answer, being only replayed memories that Pitioss demanded he see. Instead they turned towards what he remembered had been a perfect day and the bluest of skies, leaping off the ledge without fear, hands still grasped together, leaving Ardyn alone in a stone corridor, in the dark.  


‘Exactly where I’m supposed to be.’  


Jumping down, he took a deep breath air, cooled by the prevailing darkness.  


Once more he had defeated the training grounds; fair and square. This time, he did it all on his own.  


_‘You beat it?’_   


_‘Fair and square!’_   


The sudden sight of his brother’s face on another shocked Ardyn after he had leapt down the ground. Crouched against the stone, he watched the black clad Chosen walk to his friends in the sunlight, his victory cloaking him like an unbreakable mantle; his grin wide and bright. As he stood the visage faded, the darkness pulling close.  


‘Now how did that lamb know of this place…’ Ardyn mused, looking over to Ravatogh, ‘and how did he get here?’  


Deciding it was not worth thinking about, Ardyn stood straight, pulling down his shirt to cover his arms, the Star’s light still strong enough to send his body itching. With a sigh, he turned back to the entrance.  


‘Need to get my coat…oh what a day this has been.’ He muttered bitterly.  


He remembered that moment of victory, stood by his Brother in the sun and it was with a scowl he realised he would never feel that ever again.  


That victory had been theirs.  


The next victory he gained would exist only due to manipulation and coercion by entities that knew little of the people they swung like puppets from a gibbet.  


The goddess of death and time had reminded him that whatever he gained from the coming battle, it wouldn’t mean a thing. All was meaningless.  


Well. Very well. He knew he was a puppet.  


But it was so much fun to twist some strings.  


Now he had to get his ruddy hat back.


End file.
